Unprecedented

POLICIES

UNPRECEDENTED ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Border Patrol chief says lack of consequences is driving border crisis

BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON

The u.s. southern border is in crisis largely because of a lack of consequences being applied to most illegal aliens, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz says.

“In my experience, we have seen increases when there are no consequences,” Ortiz said on July 28 during a deposition for a lawsuit against the federal government brought by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.

Ortiz also said that the border crisis creates unsafe conditions for Americans.

His comments are a departure from statements made by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has repeatedly said that the border is closed and that no crisis exists.

On Aug. 29, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a press briefing that people aren’t walking across the U.S.–Mexico border.

“It’s not just that people are walking across— across the border,” she said. “That’s not how it works.”

At current levels, Border Patrol agents are

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz at a community meeting in Del Rio, Texas, on June 24, 2021.

PHOTO BY CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/ THE EPOCH TIMES

apprehending an average of 6,000 people each day who are walking across the southern border illegally, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Agents are on pace to apprehend more than 2 million illegal aliens during the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30. Border Patrol agents have arrested 66 illegal aliens along the southern border who are on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist and 9,381 convicted criminal aliens.

Ortiz said that as long as the administration isn’t detaining or removing most illegal immigrants, the numbers will increase.

“There is an assumption if migrant populations are told that there’s a potential that they may be released, that yes, you can see increases,” he said.

He said migrants had an “unfavorable view” of Trump-era immigration policies, but since Joe Biden was elected president, unprecedented

numbers have entered the United States due to the perception that they’d be released and able to stay indefinitely. Ortiz said that economics is a consistent driver of illegal immigration. 6,000 “I think almost every single one of the migrants that we encounter is being driven by economic opPEOPLE portunities that exist or the lack of economic opportunities in their BORDER PATROL home country,” he said. agents are apprehending an Catch and Release average of 6,000 In the first 10 months of this fiscal illegal immigrants year, hundreds of thousands of illeeach day along the gal aliens have been released into southern border. the United States, pending their immigration court proceedings, according to CBP data. Through the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Congress mandated that all inadmissible and illegal aliens be detained until their status is determined, after which they

A Border Patrol agent organizes a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20.

are either deported or granted entry with a legal status.

Parole is an exception to this and, although it’s not a legal status, it permits a one-year entry on “a case-by-case basis” for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” according to the INA.

In the first 11 months of this fiscal year, CBP mass-released more than 282,200 illegal aliens under its new “Parole+ATD” category. ATD is an “alternatives to detention” program, which is acting as a workaround of the legal requirement to detain illegal aliens.

Under ATD, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issues the illegal alien a trackable cell phone (or an ankle bracelet) that he or she can use to check in with the agency on a regular basis.

Under parole status, illegal immigrants don’t have to provide Border Patrol with evidence of credible fear for asylum and are permitted entry without any preconditions, except a quick background check in the U.S. crime database.

The DHS’s intention appears to be to provide illegal immigrants with the quickest pathway to being released into the United States.

Ortiz said a current focus of the Border Patrol is to find ways to process and release illegal aliens even more quickly using an electronic system. In some locations, the electronic system cuts processing times in half, he said.

“We are able to take biometrics in the field and determine immediately whether somebody has been apprehended previously, whether they have a criminal record, and whether they are a threat to our national security or to our officers,” he said.

He said agents in Yuma, Arizona, are now using a mobile intake system 100 percent of the time. The agency’s plan is to expand the practice to all U.S. land borders.

In addition, Ortiz said his agency is set to reduce its use of “expedited removal,” which is an

accelerated procedure to remove illegal aliens. ICE’s detention space has been reduced in recent years from 51,379 beds in 2018 to its current count of 30,000. Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget asks for Congress to shave an additional 5,000 detention beds from ICE facilities, as well as to eliminate all 2,500 family beds.

Florida Lawsuit

The Florida lawsuit, which is set for trial in January 2023, accuses the Biden ad“WE HAVE SEEN ministration of violating immigration law and the INCREASES WHEN Constitution. It wants the court to issue a permanent

THERE ARE NO injunction compelling the administration to follow CONSEQUENCES.” immigration law, cease using the Parole+ATD pathway, and detain illegal Raul Ortiz, chief, Border Patrol aliens until their cases are decided. Over an eight-month period ending in July, nearly 40,000 illegal aliens who provided a Florida address and placed into the newly created Parole+ATD program failed to check in with ICE, Moody said in a statement. “The federal government now has no idea of their location or activity—even though most of them are legally inadmissible,” he said.

Two Nicaraguan nationals hold up the cellphones they received from Border Patrol before being released into the United States, in Kinney County, Texas, on April 29.

Goliad, texas—Three stash house operators, a raft guide, two walking guides, a bush hiking guide, a taxi driver, and at least three other drivers were coordinated to smuggle Martin Lazaro Bieya to Houston—his first major city after running the gauntlet through U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement—from Reynosa, Mexico.

His final goal was Detroit, where he said an uncle had a job lined up for him.

Bieya’s trip was cut short in Goliad County, some 200 miles north of the border and 150 miles shy of Houston, after the vehicle in which he was being smuggled crashed into a culvert as the driver attempted to flee local law enforcement.

He initially fled the scene, but was picked up by the sheriff that evening after walking to a road to look for water and food.

The Epoch Times spoke with 17-year-old Bieya through a translator on June 23 as he sat in the Goliad jail.

Bieya said he’s from Veracruz in eastern Mexico, where his family owns a small ranch, but he “can’t make enough money there.”

He says that in late May, he made the decision to come to the United States and called his uncle in Detroit.

“He told me he would get me to the United States,” Bieya said.

A couple of weeks later, Bieya and his father took a bus to Reynosa, a major city separated from McAllen, Texas, by the Rio Grande, which marks the international border.

In central Reynosa, the duo waited at a restaurant. They provided the uncle with their GPS location and what they were wearing, and a taxi soon arrived to take them to a stash house.

At the house, Bieya’s father bid him goodbye and got back in the taxi to return to Veracruz.

Inside the house, which Bieya said was good-looking, “not a trashy house,” four other Mexicans waited to be smuggled across the border. These weren’t the illegal crossers who turn themselves into Border Patrol for asylum, but rather, the “gotaways”—the tens of thousands

Illegal border-crossers are rescued by agents on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection boat after getting stuck halfway across the Rio Grande on Feb. 16, 2019.

who evade capture every month because they’re unlikely to qualify for any type of legal entry.

A Mexican man in his mid-20s was running the house, Bieya said. He said that he didn’t have to pay anything for food, accommodation, or transport at any stage, but suspects that his uncle paid about $7,000 to have him smuggled to Detroit.

“He said he paid a lot of money, but he never told me how much,” he said.

Bieya said he spent the night in the house, and around noon the next day, the five migrants were transported by car to “the end of a long road,” after which he estimates they walked about three miles to the bank of the Rio Grande.

There, they crossed the river in an inflatable raft and disembarked into the United States.

Two Mexican Americans appeared and escorted them further from the river.

“They knew what they were doing. They were just there to pick us up,” Bieya said. The group walked until nightfall, then stopped for a while before resuming at about 1 a.m. They arrived at a stash house in McAllen, Texas, in the early morning, he said.

Three other illegal immigrants were already at the stash house, bringing their group to eight. SEVERAL HOURS LATER, the group was transported to a second stash house in McAllen, where they waited until evening before squeezing into a Ford pickup truck. By now, there were 14 people to transport, including two Honduran nationals and one female.

“There were seven of us” jammed into the truck bed under a sheet of plywood to hide them, he said. “It was tight.”

“After about an hour on the road, the truck stopped and they told us to get out.”

Bieya said he didn’t know where they were, but the timing fits with where smugglers drop off illegal immigrants so they can walk through the brush to skirt the Border Patrol highway checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas.

It’s one of the deadliest paths for illegal immigrants, where many die from heat-related issues. Guides, or “coyotes,” leave sick or injured people to fend for themselves.

The original two coyotes were still with Bieya’s group, and at this point, a third was present to lead them in their ensuing seven-night trek.

“We walked from 4 in the afternoon until 5 in the morning,” Bieya said. At the time, the temperature in South Texas was hitting the high-90s to 100s during

the day, while the night cooled to the mid-70s. The group carried 1-gallon jugs for water, and when they ran dry, they’d find a livestock trough to refill. They ate only once a day. “We all talked about what we would do if we made it safe into the United States,” he said. “I wanted to work for a couple of years and hopefully get citizenship.” Helicopters with spotlights passed over several times, and they had to scurry into the brush to hide. He said he also saw drones three times during the trek. Two rattlesnakes met their demise during the trip. After seven nights, Bieya “WE WALKED said the group arrived at a paved road and waited for FROM 4 IN THE the pickup vehicle to arrive. Within an hour, a Chevy AFTERNOON Tahoe SUV stopped, and they all crammed in. The

UNTIL 5 IN next stop was supposed to be Houston, but in Goliad THE MORNING.” County, Sheriff Roy Boyd spotted them and attempt-

Martin Lazaro Bieya, illegal immigrant ed to pull the vehicle over. The driver tried to escape, but lost control and crashed into a culvert. All of the occupants, including Bieya, fled into the brush. But he was the last one to exit the vehicle and never saw the main group again. He said members of the group had told him they planned to go to New York, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Houston. “I didn’t know what to do because I was so hungry, so thirsty,” he said. Later that evening, he said he decided to turn himself in. Bieya found some workers near a road and asked them for water. “They gave me two bottles of water and a

Martin Lazaro Bieya, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, sits in the Goliad County jail after being caught in Goliad, Texas, on June 23.

beef taco,” he said. Not long afterward, the sheriff was passing by, saw him on the side of the road, and apprehended him.

Eight other members of the group were later apprehended in a nearby county. They were turned over to Border Patrol and taken back to Mexico, but Boyd has issued warrants for their arrests, should they reappear. The warrants include felony charges for engaging in organized crime, as well as several misdemeanors, including evading arrest, Boyd said.

The Cartel

The Gulf Cartel coordinates all the logistics of the human smuggling from the eastern part of Mexico right through the Texas corridor and deep into the United States, said Boyd.

“Just think of the logistics that go into it,” Boyd said. Bieya was just one person in a system that handles thousands of illegal aliens per day.

Officials in El Paso, Texas, recently estimated there were 60,000 people across the border in Ciudad Juárez waiting to enter the United States illegally. Boyd said he’s heard estimates of a half-million waiting to cross along the 1,254-mile Mexico–Texas border.

“As you move those people, where you’re moving them to has to be vacated by the people who are already there,” he said.

“It’s almost like warfare, the logistics of feed-

ing and transporting and housing and having water and the toiletries and all of the things that are required. It’s a phenomenal task just on the logistics side.” He said working factories and warehouses in Mexico are common locations that cartels use to stash people until they’re ready to take them across the border. Boyd said the cartels pay the Mexican government each month for the use of the 60,000 “plazas,” which are the staging and border crossing areas. The government will allow a certain volume PEOPLE of drugs or amount of people to OFFICIALS IN EL PASO, Texas, recently estimated there were 60,000 flow through per month, and if it exceeds that, the cartel is taxed, or the government will raid a warepeople across the border house and sit on the commodity in Ciudad Juárez waiting until the cartel pays. to enter the United “It’s how they work with the States illegally. drugs, so I suspect they work the exact same way with humans,” Boyd said. If too many people get stacked up waiting to cross, it causes a cash flow issue for the cartels, he said, “because now, the cartels have got to pay extra manpower, they’ve got to pay for water, they’ve got to pay for food, they’ve got to pay for toilet paper, they’ve got to pay for medicine— they’ve got to pay for all the things because it’s in the cartel’s interest to keep these people alive.” “What these people don’t know at this point is that that payment to get across to Texas is not

Illegal immigrants cross the Rio Grande from Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, on Feb. 16, 2019.

A warning sign to cartels at the Goliad County boundary line, written in Spanish.

A map shows Goliad County in relation to the U.S.–Mexico border and Houston.

the final payment. The final payment gets told to them when they get to Houston,” he said.

Inside Texas, and beyond, the Gulf Cartel has an extensive network, with Atlanta being the next major hub beyond Houston.

“The cartel owns car dealerships, restaurants, various businesses, and it helps them launder their money, move their slaves, and maintain a foothold within the communities,” Boyd said. “That’s how it functions, and it’s very complex, but it ensures the cartel’s total control of their operational area within the United States.”

The smuggler drivers are now often recruited via social media such as TikTok, WhatsApp, and Facebook, Boyd said.

“They were targeting Hispanic teenagers from the metropolitan areas like Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas,” he said.

“They show wads of money. And so you have a teenager who sees somebody with $10,000, and they’re told, ‘You can drive down to Falfurrias, pick up eight people, drive up here, and you get this amount of money.’ It’s quick, easy money.”

On the deadly paths that illegal immigrants travel, guides leave sick or injured people to fend for themselves.

Boyd said there’s a large Hispanic community in Houston, of which a portion “sympathizes with Mexico and works for the cartel—and so they’re the operatives that get hired to go back and forth.”

Boyd’s goal is to deter the cartel from entering Goliad County. Within the 852 square miles of the county, he monitors 16 cartel sites that are currently dormant, but tactics change quickly.

“We can’t stop it. The federal government wants it. The federal government encourages it through their policies and procedures,” he said.

“All I can do is try to make it as uninviting as possible for them to come into Goliad. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do.”

Boyd started putting up large billboards on the county line last year.

“Warning! Drug and human traffickers: Turn around, do not enter Goliad County,” the signs read. “Go around. Or we will hunt you down and put you in Goliad County jail.”

He said they worked—when the signs were up, cartel activity decreased, and when the Texas Department of Transportation (DOT) removed the signs, cartel activity picked up again.

Boyd had to stop putting up the signs after an attorney general opinion came back saying a county isn’t authorized to place signs without approval from the DOT.

“We have a whole list of rules, we have a Constitution, we have laws,” Boyd said.

“The cartel only has one: to make money. So it makes them very quickly adaptable to whatever situation they find themselves in. They’re constantly morphing.”